Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok, first of all, i decided to clean cages today. earlier this week, i couldnt find one of my huge females in the cage. i didnt leave the lid undone or anything, so i thought to myself, "where the heck could she be?" so i started digging. sure enough, there she was about 4 inches under the substrate. realizing i had just interrupted her, i moved back the substrate and let her do her thing. later on i found 4 eggs. so today while im cleaning cages, i notice another female, one of my favorites, is completely MIA. so i think "great, shes gotta be laying eggs." im not used to this, because my cresteds have always started laying their eggs soon after the lights go out, not during the day. so i dig. shes not there. my setups are kinda funky, i use cork bark panels along one side to create something like a fake tree trunk. so i dug about 6 inches into the dirt behind that. nothing. took out all the branches, checked under clumps of moss, not there. now im starting to get worried. then all the sudden i feel something white. it's an egg. and another. and another. and another. and another. and another. and another. and another. 8 eggs from this girl, and still no sign of her. i tore up the bottom of the cage looking for both eggs and my girl, but no sign of her. finally, i start ripping out the moss that i stuff inbetween the two cork bark panels, and a head pops out. seems as though she went to lay a new pair of eggs at the bottom of the enclosure, and as she dug she lost track of where she was headed, and ended up at the base of the fake stump. luckily she didnt suffocate, as she came to the crack between the panels. she still would have had about a foot of substrate to dig through to get to the top of the stump if she wouldnt have made it to the crack. i just hope she doesnt start laying eggs inside the bottom of the stump! so theres a happy ending to it all, i found my females free from harm, and found 12 eggs on top of that! (and i thought they had stopped laying eggs!)
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-Mike Martin
North Carolina

hahaha, that's crazy mike!
12 eggs, that's seriously insane, especially since you thought they'd stopped
i'm still getting fertiles ( usually 1 fertile, and 1 infertile) from each of my females and they've been separated for 6 months!
also, if they start to look dried out, they will usually absorb all of the moisture again within a day or two. i got 3 eggs from a friend and one was about 1/2 way dented, within 2 days it looked perfectly good and just hatched this morning.
glad you found all your girls, and crazy story too.

yea, part of the reason i havent noticed when the girls are laying eggs is because i moved back home, and when i did that i moved my collection from my bedroom to the basement. i still make daily observations, but they arent as frequent as they were in the past. at least i have figured out where my girls are laying their eggs, and luckily the few times i havent, the babies have hatched out. i guess that means im doing something right in my vivaria, i have a friend who has probably lost a dozen or more crested eggs because her female always lays them out of sight, and by the time she uncovers them they're dessicated. ive never had the slightest dent in an egg so far, although ive had a couple go bad, the hatch rate is almost overwhelming for me.
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-Mike Martin
North Carolina

lol oh man my gecko got out like 2 weeks ago and i couldnt find it so i figured i'd dig up my closet ( i have a dresser in my closet so i was pulling stuff out from the side and behind it.) so im bending over the dresser killing my self to get stuff out and then i just gave up because he usually just appears randomly if he gets out. i start shaking my head in disappointment i feel something leap from my head to my hand i shake my hand in reflex and theres bagheera sitting on my dresser like nothing ever happened. Typical male for ya.

that's funny but scary. i find phant eggs this way sometimes and
now it's like total high blook presure when i shift through the dirt. I found that in a tall tank, 3' that as the substrate is dryer they won't lay there but rather in a tupperware container.
ever thought about trying this?